All the Arts, All the Time

L.A. muralist Judy Baca receives 2010 Public Art Network Award

June 24, 2010 | 5:46
pm

Los Angeles muralist Judy Baca has devoted her career to bringing together the visual arts and social activism. On Thursday, Americans for the Arts announced that Baca is receiving the 2010 Public Art Network Award that recognizes "innovative and creative contributions and commitment in the field of public art."

Baca is co-founder of the Social & Public Art Resource Center, a Venice-based organization committed to using public art as a means of bringing communities together. Baca has had a hand in creating numerous murals, but her most famous remains the Great Wall of Los Angeles, a 2,735-foot long historical mural in the San Fernando Valley that the artist designed in 1976 and that was executed by various community groups.

She is a full professor at UCLA in its Chicano studies department and world arts and cultures department. Her current projects include the Cesar Chavez Memorial at San Jose State University, the Robert F. Kennedy monument at the site of the former Ambassador Hotel and the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in San Diego.

On Sept. 30, Baca will participate in a re-dedication of her mural "La Memoria de Nuestra Tierra: California 1996" at the University of Southern California.